Pages

Monday, April 5, 2010

NESVITA OMEGA PLUS NUTRITION HUNT - THE BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE

BANDAR UTAMA, 4 Apr 2010: Acting on a tip-off that Nestle was organizing a treasure hunt in conjunction with the Nestle Nourishing Malaysia Showcase and that the CoC was someone reputable in our fraternity, I rounded-up the family and made my way to the 1 Utama Shopping Centre.

Nestle has been organizing this event for the last 3 years primarily to showcase their latest products in the market, and also to pitch the continuous development, technology, research and resources that they have poured into their products in support of the government’s efforts to encourage healthier diets and active lifestyles among Malaysians.

The treasure hunt was just one of many activities being organized over the weekend. Other available activities included cooking demonstrations, colouring contests, a talent contest, creative challenges, health screen and many others. Nestle had also enticed the crowd with lots of freebies including goodie bags filled with Nestle products.

Maggi Masak Masak Studio Hands-on Cooking Demonstration

Matkool Potato Head Creative Challenge

Kitkat Wii Tennis Challenge

Nesvita Omega Plus Nutrition Hunt Winners

The treasure hunt which was choreographed by Vanda Chan (a member of our hunting fraternity who also happens to be from Nestle) and assisted by Kok Seng, registered 24 participating teams. Most of the participants appeared to be fresh faces, although there were one or two familiar faces in the fray. In teams of two, hunters were required to answer 12 cryptic and 5 picture questions within an hour. I felt that the time allocated was sufficient given that the area to cover was not very large.

Yet, even though the hunting time was adequate, those who do not speak the beautiful language would still have struggled to complete the hunt. Like any foreign language, to the uninitiated "words" like spromiset would appear to be utter nonsense. I recall looking very lost during my very first hunt. I remember vaguely one of the treasure riddles from that Walk Hunt that had me completely stumped. I was so tempted then to hand in several bag loads of dry leaves but in the end wisely decided the task was too time consuming and sacrificed the 5 points in favour of attempting the rest of the questions. I can't remember the exact words now but it was phrased something like:

It is important that participants are sufficiently briefed about the language prior to the hunt, but today this was not done. So, it would not surprise me any (with questions like these) if many finished the hunt today looking as lost as I did almost a decade ago.

Sorry, Anonymous friend, I've only been told of your invitation for a comment shortly ago by a friend via text message.

Before commenting any further, let me just clarify here that I wasn't there in that hunt, and am therefore unable to confirm that CK Loh's explanation is indeed that of the CoC's. However, seeing the question and answer supplied by 2R1I, I'm inclined to think that that is indeed the intention of the CoC. Therefore, my comment below shall be based solely on such assumption.

Firstly, I think it is acceptable to equate ST = RD, which are commonly used not only in cryptic clues, but also as ordinary abbreviations, because STREET = ST; and ROAD = RD; and it's reasonable to expect ST = RD.

So, PROMISE in RD is like saying PROMISE in ST.

However, in my opinion, R&D has a different significance here. When looking at those letters RD on a signboard, one may read it as:

(1) R and D (on the signboard); or

(2) RD (without even saying the "and".)

So in that sense,

"PROMISE in RD"

can also be phrased as

"PROMISE in R&D"

That said, however, in this case, the clue did not say anything about R (and) D. It says SpromiseT. So here we have a slightly different scenario. Hunters will have to equate S&T = R&D.

The problem now is whether we can accept S&T = R&D. Personally, I can't accept it. Because as far as I know it, no one uses R&D in the written form (or spoken) to mean ROAD. Likewise, no one would say S&T to mean STREET whether in the written form (or spoken).

No indeed. You did not confused me. I am a fan, so I am used to Corny's way of explanation.

And I can agree that CK Loh's explanation is probably what the COC had in mind too.

My only contention is orally or in the written form, the short of form ROAD or STREET which is RD and ST respectively cannot be meant or read as R-AND-D or S-AND-T. And this is the reason why I can't agreed that rd is equivalent to r&d.